India A Series ....

[suresh]

Cheteshwar Pujara is 249* and is 19 short of the Windies A total of 268. He bats like the Duracell bunny -- on and on.

[PKBasu]

He was slightly out of form in recent months (in all forms of the game), so Pujara showed he had regained form with a magnificent 306*. WIndies A struggling to hold on, at 75/3 in the second innings with more than one day to go.

[Omkara]

Good news ...... even Gambhir did well... but Shewag failed again and so did Zaheer... Only Yuvi continues to do well but his motivations are different..

[prasen9]

Atithee raised questions about future players for India in the RSA series thread. I thought I would bring the discussion here because it is perhaps a longer term question than just the RSA series. Who would you like to be the batsmen tried in the A team? I would like it to be Mukund, Jiwanjot, Manish Pandey, Robin Bist and two others. Maybe Aparajith and Zol. Of course, I like Badrinath, Yashpal Singh (if space permits) and Nayar but they are on the other side of 30. Chand and Vihari have to work a bit more; half a season at least and set the field on fire with their bat. Manoj is injured.

Who are the bowlers? I like Sandeep Sharma. And, Bhuvnesh, Shami are young. Aaron certainly if he regains fitness. Who are the young spinners? Harmeet Singh?

Allrounder - I like Menaria. We could manufacture one from Aparajith?

Why don't we have the A-team touring New Zealand or somewhere else?

[Atithee]

For bowlers, as I noted in another thread, Sandeep Sharma did not impress me. Harshal Patel did. I am wondering why is he not in the team that is playing against Delhi. Samson doesn't make the cut for the batsmen yet? Remember, he's also a keeper. Who is our next keeper after Dhoni? Ideally, we need a keeper batsman. Rasool as a bowler? We can have multiple teams touring for that matter in different parts of the world. Maybe to the top associate nations such as Ireland etc., which will be beneficial to both sides.

[prasen9]

Sampson would be fine with me, but, I know nothing about him except that he is very talented. I like Saha but he is 29. I may do Saha followed by Sampson. Rasool had one good season but that was it. He has a bad FC record as a pure bowler. If you consider him as an all-rounder, I am fine. Talking of Kerala, how good is the young offie Manoharan? He seems to be getting lots of wickets this season. Harshal Patel would be fine with me. What about Pankaj Singh? 28 is not too old and he can contribute right away.

Rishi Dhawan as the next Kapil Dev ?

[Atithee]

Rasool is young and perhaps doesn't have the support of a strong bowlers to hunt in a pack or have enough runs in the bag from his batsmen to attack because he plays for J&K. His bowling record is OK. But, his batting record seems fantastic and he could be one of the contenders for the illusive all-rounder spot. Rishi maybe his competitor. But, I doubt we'll have another Kapil Dev. Certainly not likely that Rishi will be. Rasool may turn out to be the next Ashwin.

If Saha is good enough, is Parthiv far behind?

[prasen9]

Saha's wicket-keeping is much better. Batting-wise they may be similar.

[suresh]

Initially, I thought that Sampson was only a T20 player but this Ranji season, he has shown that he can can play in the longer format as well. If his keeping is good, he should be India's keeper after Dhoni retires. He has at least a couple of seasons to work on all aspects of his game to be ready. I like Saha as Dhoni's backup as (Dinesh) Karthik's keeping has gotten worse in the past couple of years.

[PKBasu]

In a sensible move before the big tour of Australia during our winter (their summer) followed by the 2015 World Cup, India A will tour Australia in late-July (when it will still be very cold) and August 2014. Here is the official announcement about the teams:

The All-India Senior Selection Committee met at the Cricket Centre, Mumbai, earlier today, to pick the India 'A' squads for the tour of Australia, in July-August 2014.

India 'A' will play two four-day games against Australia ‘A,’ and will also participate in a limited-overs Quadrangular series, featuring South Africa ‘A,’ Australia ‘A,’ and Cricket Australia’s National Performance Squad.

The teams are as follows:

TEAM FOR THE FOUR-DAY MATCHES

Manoj Tiwary (Captain,) K.L. Rahul, Jiwanjot Singh, Robin Uthappa, Ambati Rayudu, Karun Nair, Naman Ojha, Pragyan Ojha, Umesh Yadav, Dhawal Kulkarni, Anureet Singh, Rajat Paliwal, Amit Mishra, Sandeep Sharma, Jaspreet Bumrah, B. Aparajith.

TEAM FOR THE QUADRANGULAR SERIES

Robin Uthappa (Captain,) Unmukt Chand, Manish Pandey, Ambati Rayudu, Manoj Tiwary, Kedar Jadhav, Sanju Samson, Parvez Rasool, Akshar Patel, Dhawal Kulkarni, Rishi Dhawan, Mohit Sharma, Karn Sharma, Rahul Shukla, Manan Vohra, Jaydev Unadkat.


I am rather surprised to find that Aparajith is missing from the One-day side -- and that Unadkat is missing from the four-day side. I suppose they are giving a wider pool of players a chance, but those omissions are unfortunate. Good to see Rishi Dhawan in the one-day side, although I would have taken him to England ahead of Stuart Binny. I think he too should have been in the four-day side here (although he will be much more useful in England than in Australia).

[prasen9]

This pretty much shows that our selectors' thinking is muddled. The most promising bats in the long format who have been consistent have been Bawne, Pandey, and Nayar (along with Tiwary and Jiwanjot). I do not know what else Bawne and Pandey have to do in the FC games to get consistent chances for India-A especially a crucial one to Australia, where you gain valuable experience. Nayar you could argue is old --- I would take him --- but okay. KM Jadhav did very well in the FC games. Why is he at least not a backup? The only other player who has done very well in the domestics and is young and not in the team is Mukund. I have not followed him in the last season. Is he out of form?

[PKBasu]

India A are 175/3 after 50 overs on the opening day of their first first-class game -- against Australia A. Skipper Manoj Tiwary is 77*, and Jiwanjot Singh (who came in at #3) is 55*. Uthappa (23), KL Rahul (15) and Rayudu (0) failed.

Just as I finished typing, Jiwanjot fell for 56: India A 177/4 in 72 overs.

[PKBasu]

Skipper Tiwary fell soon afterwards for 83, but Naman Ojha (the 'keeper-batsman) made a career-best 219* to take India to 475/9 declared. Ojha has been really making a big case for himself to be considered as the competitor to Saha (and well ahead of DK). It is interesting how many fine wicket-keeper-batsmen have emerged in the shadow of Dhoni!

[PKBasu]

Australia A (literally a team full of test discards, and others who have played either ODIs or T20Is for Australia) are reeling at 73/4 after 26 overs, in response to India A's massive 475/9d. Phil Hughes (34) was bowled by Dhawal Kulkarni in an amazing spell of 6-5-4-1, while both Peter Forrest and Alex Doolan were caught by Rahul off the bowling of Bumrah (11-3-26-2), and Umesh Yadav has just bowled James Faulkner for 1. Yadav was expensive at the start of the innings, but has settled down to bowling a lot better now (1/42 in 9 overs, 2 of them maidens).

Update: Pragyan Ojha gets Moises Henriques in his first over (caught by Naman Ojha). Aus A 89/5
Bumrah picks up a third wicket, as Chris Lynn is caught by Naman off Bumrah's bowling. Aus A 108/6

And Australia ended the day at 126/6 when bad light stopped play with about 2 overs still to bowl. Nice to see a dominant performance by India A so far, with Australia A 349 runs behind with just 4 wickets in hand.

[Atithee]

The inability to finish off the tail is showing up again. The seventh wicket is already the highest partnership for Aus A.

For a change, our tail did well. Very well actually. Not happy that Yadav gave away his wicket cheaply, but someone will fail, so it's OK as long as he doesn't repeat this many times. We need to do this for real in test matches. We could then stand a chance to win despite our meager bowling attack.